The week that was

Well, I made it through two+ hours of reading politically minded tweets without bursting into tears once, so that’s a definite improvement. I think my body has worked its way through the “stress response cycle” and closer to equilibrium.

But never have I experienced a reaction like this one, of such complete anxiety that my heart was pounding, and I got tremors. I was too shocked and horrified to even feel sad. Sadness would come the next day.

I can’t muster up any real understanding for people who voted for him. The most charitable thing I can say about them is that they’re stupid, or ignorant, or both. The most charitable. Because the least charitable would be to believe that they are racist misogynists who want to watch the world burn.

I have almost as much trouble with the idealists for whom Hillary Clinton wasn’t good enough to earn their vote—and who therefore stayed home, or voted for a third-party candidate, or left the presidential part of the ballot blank. How could they not see the difference between a highly competent candidate with potential to be a great President, and an individual unsuited to the office in every respect imaginable?

This election has proved once and for all that a man will be forgiven literally anything, and a woman absolutely nothing. #Elections2016

The majority who did vote for Hillary Clinton, and the millions who had their voting rights taken away by one means or another (voter ID laws, ban on felons voting, purge of voting rolls, long line-ups caused by having insufficient polling stations and advance voting days—you name it, the Republicans did it) do not deserve what those fools have unleashed on them. Thinking about those people makes my heart hurt.

Because Donald Trump will be a terrible President. As we know from his campaign, he will select a cabinet and aides who are as nasty and unqualified as him himself is. As we know from his rise through the GOP, he will not be stopped by the Republican-led Senate or House. As we know from history, he will appoint a Scalia-like Supreme Court justice who will continue to vote against citizen’s rights long after Trump has vacated the office. As we see on the news, he’s made racial attacks acceptable again.

But, we also know, from Trump’s campaign and business dealings, that he lies constantly and does not keep his promises. Here, we can take some comfort, because what he promised to do was really appalling. Maybe he’ll find renegotiating trade deals too much of a boring bother to pursue. Maybe he’ll be content with opting out of the Paris Climate agreement, and not actually go as far as abolishing the EPA. Maybe he won’t suppress gay rights, just to annoy Mike Pence, whom he doesn’t really like. Yay?

The calls to action are coming in now. As a Canadian, I know just what I can do to influence US politics: Nothing. Truly, I can’t think of anything I can do to influence what goes on there.

But, I can vigilant against similar threats in my own country. America might never have seen a candidate like Donald Trump before, but other countries have. A friend from Venezuela says he eerily reminded her of Chavez. Trevor Noah has compared him to African dictator / strongmen. Me, I think of former Toronto mayor Rob Ford, and his coarseness, constant lying, impulse control issue, racism, sexism, disinterest in facts and data, and love of the title but note the actual work of being mayor.

So don’t think it can’t happen in Canada—it already has.

We need to speak out against the Kellie Leitch’s of our land, who has cynically ceased upon Trump’s xenophobia and anti-intellectualism as path to victory in the Conservative party leadership. (And maybe even pay the $15 to get a party membership to vote against that woman—and for a more progressive option, like Michael Chong or Lisa Raitt. I’m thinking about it!)

Whatever Canada’s faults, however it has failed in the past, there is much to be said for standing in opposition to what now seems to dominate American politics, not with self-satisfaction but with a renewed and newly urgent commitment to the plurality, community, benevolence and reason that is now lacking in the United States.

And when you meet your American friends, give them a hug, and encourage them in the fight to get their country back. What’s good for America is good for the world.

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2 thoughts on “The week that was”

I’m still not done crying, even though I thought I was. Rick & I just happened upon a protest last night in Philly while we were out walking. Neither of us are protest people–we don’t like crowds–but we joined in. It felt good for a little while, anyhow, but mostly what I felt was disappointment in myself that I didn’t do more to stop this, that I wasn’t protesting when he was just one possible candidate in a series of less deplorable RNC candidates, and mostly what I wish is that I’d worked harder to convince people I love–who I know are not “bad” people and who I previously thought weren’t stupid–not to vote for this man. At the time, it seemed so implausible that having uncomfortable conversations didn’t seem worth potential discord. Hindsight is a painful, painful thing. God help us all.